Epic Hollywood film scores aside, over the last couple of years I’ve discovered some remarkable modern composers and orchestral works. They’re wonderful to listen to when you’re writing, or even when you’re sitting alone in room, brooding. The more you listen to them, the more little quirks you discover in the score. I’ll maybe post some more when I get the time, but here are two whose music should be explored.

Zbigniew Preisner is one of Poland’s leading film composers, but the album I want to mention is Requiem For My Friend, which you can listen to on Last FM. Veering away from the darker side of Karl Jenkins, Presiner mixes orchestral and choral works, drawing deeply from that great tradition of the requiem. There is something distinctly gothic about the resulting album; and in some places the songs soar, in others they bring a deeply meditative quality.

The next composer I want to mention is a much more famous chap, Ludovico Einaudi. His amazing piano works can be heard in the odd television commercial here and there, and most if not all the snippets are taken from the album Divenire. The melodies are soothing, profound and elegant. If you’re reading this whilst stressed out in your office, then plug in some headphones, take a few deep breaths and listen to this:

Three posts today? Must be my week off work. So here’s some music for your summer evenings, when you’re reclining by a river bank, or if you’re generally into the New Folk. These guys are pretty good: they’re playing in a Fernery.

It’s a Bank Holiday in the UK, so all you’re getting is some fine music instead (which doesn’t kick in until around 50 seconds). I’m really envious of streets where this kind of stuff happens – and, whenever I’ve seen it, it’s wonderful to watch people’s reactions as the texture and routine of their day suddenly changes. Think how much better the world would be if more musicians headed outdoors with their close harmony singing?

Creativity is something like magic. One form might feed the other, providing inspiration, sparking ideas, fueling the creative juices. For the authors contained within this unique anthology, the source of inspiration was the music of Bruce Springsteen. Themes, lines, song titles . . . whatever it took to draw these stories into life.

So many of Springsteen’s songs bring you close to the edge of a darkness where uncertainty reigns – a darkness not just on the edge of town but of our hearts and minds . . . the darkness between child and adulthood, perhaps; or between courage and fear; marriage and divorce; even confidence and self-doubt. These nineteen authors nudge us closer to an answer . . . and let us see what really is stirring out there in the shadows.

I don’t often write short stories, because I don’t often get the opportunity, but I love the chance to handle something different, flex the writerly muscles, and try to prove I’m not a one-trick pony. A big fan of Springtsteen, when I heard about this anthology, I just had to send in an entry and, at the time of writing, I had no deal with Tor UK, which for some reason makes it especially nice that the story was accepted.

Basically, the brief was to expand or be inspired by one of the Boss’s songs, and take that into the short story medium, which I guess is a more exotic form of tie-in fiction. For those of you who are interested, the song I chose as inspiration was Devil’s Arcade.

Fantastic song, about a real world tragedy, the Penlee lifeboat disaster, where the Solomon Browne sought to rescue the stricken coaster Union Star in terrible conditions. Both boats were lost to the elements, resulting in 16 casualties. It happened just before Christmas, 1981.